+jgkspsx Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Okay, admittedly, video games are silly. They are full of ridiculous things. But I want to talk specifically about games where the core mechanic is totally the opposite of reality. Example 1: Frogger. Frogs must live in water to survive. Even toads are born in water and can swim just fine. Why does the water kill Frogger. Why doesn’t it kill the gators? Example 2: River Raid. Flying fast (windspeed, altitude, weather being equal) uses more fuel than flying slow. In River Raid you use more fuel if you go slow, and the core mechanic of the game depends on that opposite. (Also you collect fuel by blowing up fuel tanks, but we’ll let that go as just normal video game silliness.) Are there other examples of “opposite day” core mechanics in video games? I can’t imagine these are alone. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jeremiahjt Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 8 minutes ago, jgkspsx said: Okay, admittedly, video games are silly. They are full of ridiculous things. But I want to talk specifically about games where the core mechanic is totally the opposite of reality. Example 1: Frogger. Frogs must live in water to survive. Even toads are born in water and can swim just fine. Why does the water kill Frogger. Why doesn’t it kill the gators? Example 2: River Raid. Flying fast (windspeed, altitude, weather being equal) uses more fuel than flying slow. In River Raid you use more fuel if you go slow, and the core mechanic of the game depends on that opposite. (Also you collect fuel by blowing up fuel tanks, but we’ll let that go as just normal video game silliness.) Are there other examples of “opposite day” core mechanics in video games? I can’t imagine these are alone. You do not collect fuel by blowing up fuel tanks in River Raid. You collect fuel by flying over them. As far as opposites.... uh I got nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted October 14, 2021 Author Share Posted October 14, 2021 Oh, that’s true. Sorry, my brain is a little Scrambled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roots.genoa Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Damn, that completely ruins your topic idea since planes fly over fuel tanks to get a refill in real life... ? (Yeah, I know, it's not the "opposite") 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikebloke Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Dungeon Keeper, instead of playing the hero going into the dungeon you make the dungeon and try to kill the heroes instead. I'd argue that morality suggests we shouldn't be doing this in real life, so therefore its opposite XD There is a few more extreme examples of this, but they usually get banned from most sites. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeonSpaceBeagle Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 this is really hard to think of.. There's a couple of racing games (that im totally blanking on the names right now) where the control scheme is the opposite.. like moving left makes you steer right and vice versa. i think these are older games though, maybe atari? it's always jarring to play those kinds of games. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Joust - Humans hatch from eggs, not the birds 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Konami's Scramble is the one where you blow up fuel to get it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 Any game that is not a sports or board game that has a score. You don't get points for blowing stuff up in real life. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted October 14, 2021 Author Share Posted October 14, 2021 3 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said: Konami's Scramble is the one where you blow up fuel to get it. |_ | V 15 hours ago, jgkspsx said: Oh, that’s true. Sorry, my brain is a little Scrambled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted October 14, 2021 Author Share Posted October 14, 2021 1 hour ago, DragonGrafx-16 said: Any game that is not a sports or board game that has a score. You don't get points for blowing stuff up in real life. That’s true, you get hard time ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiddlepaddle Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 I think there are quite a few flying games where the joystick is opposite of a real airplane joystick. And I can't imagine weaving in and out of real traffic with an 8-way joystick, but I guess that's not really "opposite" either. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted October 15, 2021 Author Share Posted October 15, 2021 19 minutes ago, fiddlepaddle said: And I can't imagine weaving in and out of real traffic with an 8-way joystick, but I guess that's not really "opposite" either. GM experimented with productionalizing joystick steering in the early 80s and it is available to a limited capacity as an assistive device now: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roots.genoa Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 Also every game in which the player controls a policeman and kills enem- oh no, wait, that's perfectly legal in the US. ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IntelliMission Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 In real life, animals live in the open, in places where there is sunlight, and in places where there are ecosystems so they can find something to eat. And (most) people don't exterminate them. In Tomb Raider (1996), however, things are the opposite: animals like lions, bears or crocodiles live in isolated caves and their only purpose in life is to wait for you to kill them with one pistol in each hand as you circle around them, jumping laterally while doing somersaults in the air. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 Hangman- there is no death penalty for misspelled words. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roots.genoa Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 The card game called War or Battle. There is no strategy (neither battling actually) involved at all, it's pure luck. Well, luck might be involved in real life wars, but they tend to be a lot less sleep-inducing. ? Also, the card game caters mostly to small children, while they're usually not involved in real life wars, fortunately. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mushroom Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 (edited) Super Monaco GP (Sega Master System) If you want to make a right turn at the highest possible speed without going off track, you must position the car to the right of the road before the turn. Also, if you are hit in the rear by an AI car, you lose speed. Edited October 20, 2021 by Lord Mushroom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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